20091223 Staniel Cay, Exuma, Bahamas
It is overcast with scattered showers day in paradise. A good day to catch up on reading, boat
chores and personal hygiene. The Staniel
Cay Yacht Club does not provide showers or free water. Water sells for $0.40 per gallon. The rain is warm and under cover of the
bimini, one washrag plugs the scuppers, while the other is in use scrubbing
away body grime. Exchange, squeeze and
continue. Fresh clothes make all the
difference. Cat spent the morning
organizing and cleaning up our small world.
I brought a “Christmas tree” & and lights for the holiday. Really, this is just a cast net, hauled up on
a spinnaker halyard, with the bottom tied out in a circle to foredeck
hardware. This forms the “tree” shape. The addition of two strings of LED Christmas
lights make a fine, collapsible tree.
Since we are plugged into dock power, we run an extension cord to the
base and viola, “O, Tannenbaum”.
Dinghy’s passing by have been giving us thumbs up on the
creativity.
Yesterday, we were told of a lady here in town that bakes
delicious bread in her home. We found
her house, as we could smell the wonderful fragrance of baking bread all the
way out at the street. In the tradition
in the Bahamas, we just knocked on the back door. We were invited in and stating our
interest, she told us that all the loaves were spoken for except for a few
white loaves, which we purchased. We
found out that she also makes cinnamon raisin and cocoanut. We placed another order for these, paying the
$6 premium. Tuna fish and French toast
consumed ½ the first loaf, which we relished.
A couple of pieces of buttered bread and peanut butter & jelly
sandwich, seriously diminished the remaining.
Cat wandered uptown to gather our other loaves a few minutes ago. Unfortunately, just after she left, the skies
opened. She arrived back with one loaf
and soaked from the bottom of her foul weather coat down. Her spirits were undampened and we are again
snug and dry inside Angel, listening to satellite radio Christmas music.
I transferred all 12 gallons of gas from our Gerry cans into
the main tank. The fuel dock has diesel
but no gas. Many are waiting for
supplies on the 2:45pm plane or 3:00pm mailboat. I asked the dockhand when the delivery of
fuel was expected. He smiled and
said. “This is the Bahamas, mon. Not to worry.” Schedules do not matter much here.
20091224 Staniel Cay, Exuma, Bahamas
We awoke to our usual gentle motion in the v-berth,
however; today, something is
different. Glancing skyward through the
portholes, we spy blue skies and white puffy clouds. To celebrate, we ready ourselves with cheddar
cheese in the last two eggs scrambled with cocoanut bread and mango jam. Hot coffee & tea finish our morning
feast. Today is the day to explore the
waters around Staniel Cay.
I pull the dinghy around, and we jump aboard in our bathing
suits with food scraps and the camera.
Across the harbor is Big Major Cay, where locals say there are swimming
pigs. The water is fairly smooth, but we
get a steady spray of water as we push away the wavelets. Rounding the end of Big Major Cay, we see 20+
yachts in the anchorage and three isolated beaches. We head for the first beach. As we approach, I noticed one of the “rocks”
on the beach developed an ear twitch! As we neared shore, the pig arose and
calmly strolled into the water, then swam right up to the inflatable. When we were too slow throwing out apple
chunks, he attempted to put his hooves on the pontoon and hop aboard. I steered away and he fel l back into the
water as two of his buddies trotted out of the brush down to the water. We continued to throw old bread, some
leftover cheese and apple chunks ahead of the trio, who gobbled up the
goodies. With an empty bag, we hustled
away to the second beach for some uninterrupted shelling. We found a number of conch shells,
unoccupied, and selected three of the most colorful to bring back to Angel to
bake in the sun today.
We continued our circumnavigation of Big Major Cay, slipping
through the 30 foot cut between Big Major and Fowl Cay. The falling tide made the water in this
narrow & shallow area boil with standing waves. Clearly, the ships entering this area needed
to enter at high tide, slack water for safe passage. Entering the main channel into Big Rock Cut,
the water was rough and one wave was especially large, nearly capsizing
us. Only at the last minute did I see
the wave and turn the dinghy into it to ride over it. We continued on around Big Major taking water
over the side as we passed. Once back in
the lee of the Thunderball Cay, we paused and pumped out the dinghy, proceeding
on, looking for calmer waters. We headed
back to the dock to get snorkel equipment.
We noted that the gas pump was again in service and paused
our explorations to get our Gerry cans filled.
The gas boat came in late yesterday afternoon without our notice. We are again fueled, ready for our departure
on 12/26.
With our snorkel equipment on board, we motored the dinghy
over to Thunderball Grotto. Cat decided
to stay in the dinghy tied to a mooring ball, while I snorkeled over to
photograph the grotto entrance and fish.
Brain coral, sea fans, yellow tails, sergeant majors, parrot fish and
especially beautiful angel fish were abundant and colorful. Back aboard the dinghy, we traveled around
Staniel Harbor, passing over a dark spot, that we first thought was grass…but
it moved. Reversing course, we
discovered the dark spot was a sting ray, six feet in diameter. I snapped a quick picture, then left it to
travel on.
Salty and hungry, we returned to Angel for a cockpit
shower. Using the foot pump, Cat placed
3 tea kettles of cold water + one boiling water into our garden sprayer. Pumping it up, we rinse the salt off, soap
up, rinse off the soap, shampoo, rinse off the shampoo; all with comfortable
warm water. Toweling off, we go into the
salon to remove our bathing suits and exchange for dry clothes. Simple and refreshing. We pause for crackers, cheese and mango
marmalade snack. We do not want to eat too
much, as we are scheduled to enjoy the Staniel Cay Christmas Evening surf &
turf feast tonight.
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